The size of the task before Labor becomes clear

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Labor would need a 5 per cent swing and 52 per cent of the vote to
gain office, writes Tim Colebatch.

With a uniform swing, Labor would need to unseat Prime Minister
John Howard to win Government in 2007, last week's election results
reveal.

Labor now needs a 5 per cent swing and 52 per cent of the vote
to win a majority of seats in the next Parliament.

Bennelong would be one of them. A 3.7 per cent swing against the
Prime Minister has cut his majority to just 4 per cent. Labor has
never won Bennelong, yet it is now one of the Coalition's 11 most
marginal seats. If all 11 fell, the Government would lose its own
majority. It's all hypothetical, of course. First, the swing is
never uniform. The safest Government seats in Melbourne, Sydney,
Brisbane and Adelaide are now in the volatile outer suburbs. If
there ever is a swing back to Labor, that is where it will be
strongest.

But second, there are redistributions ahead in NSW and
Queensland. Population shifts mean Queensland will gain a seat,
while NSW and the Northern Territory will each lose one, cutting
the House from 150 to 149 MPs, and rescrambling the seats. In all,
110 of Australia's 150 electorates swung the Government's way last
weekend. But in the city seats held by cabinet ministers, the swing
went the other way.

John Howard's seat recorded the third biggest swing to Labor
across the nation. Even bigger was its neighbour Berowra, where
there was a 4 per cent swing against Attorney-General Philip
Ruddock, the key figure in the treatment of asylum seekers. There
were 2 per cent swings against Health Minister Tony Abbott in
Warringah and Education Minister Brendan Nelson in Bradfield.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer took a 0.8 per cent hit in
Mayo, and it was only on Wednesday that Treasurer Peter Costello
topped his 2001 result in Higgins. Coalition spin doctors blame it
on the "doctors' wives", who they say are out of touch with real
world concerns. There must be a lot of them. Of seven cabinet
ministers with urban seats, five saw voters turn against them.

The election outcome was a disaster for Labor, but a catastrophe
for the Democrats. It lost all three senators seeking re-election
and support slumped to almost invisible levels: 1.2 per cent in the
House, and 2 per cent in the Senate.

Its highest vote, oddly, was in the NT seat of Lingiari, 2.8 per
cent in the House and 5.9 in the Senate. Only in the NT Senate did
the party reach the 4 per cent needed to receive federal
funding.

The Greens, by contrast, will receive lots of federal funding,
even if the party gains only one or two more seats. Its strongholds
are basically the Democrats' former strongholds: inner-urban
territory, topped by Sydney (21.6 per cent), but including
Melbourne (14.1), Batman (13.4), Melbourne Ports and Kooyong (both
12) and Higgins (10.7).

Family First, by contrast, did best in rural and urban fringe
seats. Its top vote was in the Darling Downs seat of Groom (6.4 per
cent). It won a Victorian Senate seat, yet the only Victorian seats
in which it topped 4 per cent were Mallee (4.4) and outer suburban
Casey (4.0) and Holt (4.1).

One Nation's top vote was in Pauline Hanson's old seat of Blair
around Ipswich (5.2 per cent). While three independents held their
seats, the only other to make the final two anywhere was former
magistrate Brian Deegan, runner-up to Alexander Downer in Mayo.

On election night, the two-party count was 52.4 per cent to the
Coalition, 47.6 to Labor. Postal and absentee votes have lifted the
Coalition to 52.8. It should finish with 53 per cent.